Im on my second week at my first web dev job and its been great but let me tell you its a major jump going from self taught to a full blown company working on their code base. It been a lot to get caught up with all their tech and CI CD. But I have learned so much with in this past week its crazy.
I got so tired by constant rejections and you just shared what I need to hear. Keep pushing guys! We learn by failing so get yourself more failing opportunities.
Dear Dorian, you don’t know how much I needed this. I am a Senior CS student who started to code like 2017, but I took it seriously like last year, working on several projects but still feeling like I’m not ready, it seems I’m inside an infinite loop. Can’t finish my CS course due to some math exams and feeling like everything is falling. I still continue my coding journey to get that dream job, I also working as a digital marketer for an e-commerce company to make money given that I’m living alone and outside my hometown. Thank you for putting out these videos because you are helping a lot ❤️
I went to a prestigious college for CS and in my fourth semester I had to do a medical drop. I left with huge debt and nothing to show for it. Fast forward 4ish years and I've been on disability, living with my parents, and trying to find some kind of work I can do. I took a leap and signed up for fullstack academy's online web developer 6 month bootcamp. I'm about 3.5 months into it and it has honestly been the best decision I've made in a long time. Now of course I don't have a job yet or even the certificate of completion. But the amount that I've learned in less than 4 months has been insane in comparison to my time in college and/or the years I tried to slowly teach myself. The confidence it has given me and the people I've met made it worth every penny so far. Now I'm not shilling for FS academy, as I believe I got very lucky with my instructors. The main instructor has more than a decade experience and was the lead dev at a decently sized startup prior to switching into teaching. Afaik that is not common at most bootcamps, a lot of times the instructors are past students. Regardless, I'm telling you this just to say you can do it and just try to put in the effort. I'm the type of person who needs the deadlines and stress in order to successfully learn. I needed a guided course as teaching myself was a snail's pace in comparison to now. Most importantly getting over the initial hump of learning the basics of coding, in general, has helped me to know how to actually research what I want to know. Before this I kinda felt lost, basically in tutorial hell. But the fast pace of this bootcamp has you constantly building on top of what you just learned. Which is really helpful for not forgetting the things you've already learned. I don't remember any Java or any CS related stuff from college. But web development has been far more fun and rewarding than anything I learned/used in CS during college. IDK what your plans are for a career and what area you want to work in. But hopefully this helped in some way. I plan to try and get any job asap and maybe try to do freelance until I land a job. I hope to one day go back and get my degree once I'm financially independent etc. Just in case you or anyone else is interested in what we've been taught so far; we have learned these things at a basic or higher-level html, CSS, JS, GIT, node, react, express, webpack, and now PostgreSQL. I'm probably missing something but those are the minimum of things we've built projects using. Concepts and things like debugging, BASH, npm, etc are also taught, just don't feel the need to list all that. Good luck and I hope you land a job you really enjoy!
I started the HTML and CSS lessons right when they launched the new curriculum om Free Code Camp. CSS and HTML is starting to click though! Can't wait to learn more and videos like this keep my motivation up! Thanks a lot!
Bro im almost 4 months in. I did html/css, intro to JS. Everyone says "build portfolio". So that led me to "how to freelance". Ive spent the last 3 weeks learning webflow and building a site, but a part of me wonders if this is the natural progression i need to take or if im getting side tracked. I like the visual aspect but its even more saturated than coding is. Sometimes it feels like a waste of time and i get down on myself
Im a full time Web developer and I used to be in the same situation. I was studying frontend at one point, then that led me to backend, then I started studying web design, and then freelance. Problem was i was all over the place so I never really learned everything I needed to learn. In order to succeed you MUST have a goal in mind. If you want a full time job pick that, figure out which skills you need to get one and focus only on that. If you want to freelance, study freelance and which tools you will use for it. Freelancing is easier based on the technical skills needed but harder based on other skills such as work ethic, and persistence. You can freelance without knowing how to code at all and use WordPress but inconsistency checks may be a little stressful. If you want a full time job, you will need a portfolio. First decide if you want to do frontend or backend. Don’t focus on both its a waste of time. Most companies hire for one or the other, and if you want to learn more in the future you can, while you have the job. After you make a portfolio, create a resume with those portfolio projects on it as your work experience, and whatever skills. After that apply to every web developer job you see. It will take time but you will eventually land that job. It took me 3 months once I started applying.
I as well about four months in start off with the JavaScript for some odd reason I took HTML and CSS afterwards and I'm getting the basic Logix and some of the complex stuff is starting to resonate but JavaScript is something else I plan on going front-end for Corporation so I'm going to get better at JavaScript I think HTML and CSS are pretty basic and you will use those while you're freelancing but like I said I'm aiming for corporate
did html , now doing css, then js, then php, databases. did some js already. css looks beautiful on the screen but programming languages are beautiful to write
Have my CS degree + 6 yrs experience as a software engineer working in the cloud. Front end and backend, and also deployment CI/CD stuff. Everything in this video is spot-on. I work with many self-taught developers. My advice to pass interviews: study data structures as soon as possible.
@@KillasStayFly trying to study all of leetcode can be overwhelming, but for most technical interviews there’s a handful of data structures that pop up. Learn to implement them and the time it takes to search/sort/insert/delete. Stack, Linked List, Binary Tree, and Graph (which is a tree). Learn to build them as classes and use functions to operate on them. Hash-table questions appear as well, usually disguised as comparing two lists of items. You should know it’s an array of key-value pairs stored at a hash location under the covers. A Python dictionary or JSON structure uses a hashtable.
I really love the empowerment in your videos, Dorian. I really hope that once I got my laptop/PC, I can start learning programming or in the field of cybersec. Thank you!
I agree with you Dorian, first we need to figure out which path to follow ✅ Honestly, there's a lot of talk today about burnout and tutorial hell, but the debate should focus a lot more on how to find work. I think it's one of the topics that would really help people who want to get into the industry and those who are already there ✌🏻😊
8 months in, had lots of speed bumps along the way, but building that network and improving so I can land a job this year. To me, you and Danny have been the top 2 creators in this space when it comes to being genuine and motivational. Needed to hear that last part of the video, appreciate what you do. I'll drop a comment again when I get that good news.
@@fsp2832 Late July of this year, by a stroke of fate, I was introduced by a friend of a family member to a guy who was starting a new tech company from the ground up and was looking for someone early-career in tech but with a strong background in communication (Poli-sci major here, with experience in public speaking/teaching). I hacked together a program in Python (with no prior experience, with a very new framework), showed I had a passion for the subject matter, and after a 2 month internship I got a title bump to SWE. It's an interesting situation since it's an early-stage startup, so I'm technically not getting paid just yet, but the weight of responsibility means lots of growth, and our trajectory looks solid. Everything Dorian mentions in this video is still 100% valid, but for me personally the key components were nailing the fundamentals and being teachable/capable of self-teaching, and networking. If I could go back and change anything about my career transition, I would have built more projects start-to-finish (even small ones at first), and gone to more meetups to network in person. Thanks for bringing this post back to my attention!
Your videos are always the best💯 I do receive a notification each time you post a new video.. We'll have regrets for things we did not participate in...Investment should always be on any creative man's heart for success in life.
@@Richardson238 Crypto trading is the best investment anyone could get into. As it could make you rich in a blink of an eye, trading with an expert is the only key to successful trading
@@mackea4651 Exactly which is why I will always recommend Expert Arjun B Jagat to all Newbies/greenhorn interested in making bigger profits on crypto. He is reliable and profitable
I am glad you mentioned the "middleend" developer as a focus - the one who works on the frontend, but focuses more on data manipulation and interaction with the backend than on designing the UI/UX and making it look pretty, since I tend to struggle with the latter part, while being much more comfortable with the former. Usable and pretty/creative design/layout does not come easy to me and I also find it rather uninteresting. As a result, I have quite a hard time completing a showcase project for my portfolio, because the UX/UI design/layout and looks are not really presentable. How would you recommend to deal with the situation? Just bite the bullet and make myself learn enough UI/UX stuff to make things look good enough? I always felt, doing frontend, but lacking in the UI/UX department, is a showstopper. The "middleend" idea clicked with me though, so I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the topic. Maybe it's even worth a video? :)
maybe try using tailwind in some of your projects. makes writing css more efficient and pleasant and has made my projects look a lot nicer. (not an ad) but yeah i think just keep working on the ui/ux stuff as much as you can get yourself to :)
Did my first lessons with HTML on the coding website you recommended. Man it's SUPER FRUSTRATING. It's like the website doesn't explain it too well but at the same time when I get it, it's a "AHA! OF COURSE, I WAS A FOOL" Type of thing. It's like a Dark Souls type of thing. Difficult but once you get it, it's so satisfying and become simpler...until you hit a road block
A tip is to look things up outside of the course, either to understand it or to understand it deeper. It's what devs do on a daily basis, even experienced ones. It's all about the goal, learning (reading -> understanding -> finding the best way to solve something) etc.
Love the way you use the words "grind" as "hustle" without it being synonym to flay yourself, accepting every sh*at people throw at you, but, being just a integral part of life, that is necessary if you are to achieve anything.
Dorian, I have been following your channel for the past couple of months. I am retiring from the military in about a year, and I’m really driven to get into tech, specifically as a software developer. I can’t explain how helpful this video here is, but thank you for putting it out.
I’ve been learning to code for the past 6 months and I’m just about to start learning Git! My background is Music industry and Retail and honestly my love for creating lead me to web dev. I can’t wait to start working in the space. I want to tell you guys that it’s possible just keep networking and building projects. There are opportunities for everyone to win trust me!
Man I love this guy's channel and his story. I love that there are free resources for people to be able to advance to a better career. At the same time it bugs me that culture at large tells people "oh if you don't like your job #learntocode" then the minute you start doing that everyone is like "WhY aRe YoU lEaRnInG tO cOdE iT'lL nEvEr WoRk OuT" ridiculous
If you are reading this and want to make the change, you can do it! Degrees etc doesn't matter, just do private projects and try to help out with open source projects if possible.
Hey Remember You were my motivation 2 years ago until today. We had a similar background even though I graduated with a bachelor degree in civil engineering in Africa I taught myself online while working 60 hours a week and now I got my first remote job as junior software engineer focusing more on java and reactJs. I dont even know java yet but I working hard to have some basics down before I start on Monday. It took me two years to get this job and I was only focusing on the frontend. I went from 32k as cabin cleaner to 65k as junior software engineer. It is life changing. I also built three apps that generated around $200/ month on ads and affiliate. I have a long goal and really want to motivate people here Thanks for all your support Please make a video on how to succeed as junior developer. Thanks again God blesses you and your family 👪
@@readbeforeyoureply64 bro you gotta push until you get it. Make sure you are consistent and concentrate when learning . People are so distracted by social network
Just started week 3 of learning code, currently running through the Javascript module on FCC, starting a blog to help me reiterate the things that I'm learning so that I can better absorb the concepts, and feeling really damn motivated. Your videos are so good and yourstory, your advice gives me a lot of hope that I can really do this. Thank you for everything you're doing Dorian!
This video somehow reminded me good ol times when i messed with forums, scripting a looot of stuff. but as i left school i dropped interest for a good 5 years and so on. then there came that minecraft server era got me involved, messing with all kinds of server related stuff from plugins to sms services etc. a few years ago there was one dude i met from minecraft who re-ignited my scripting passion once again. So from that point i've been messing with countless projects from webpages to desktop apps and so on building everything up from scratch. as for now i have 2 websites built up without JQuery, Bootstrap etc. While still messing around with numerous desktop apps. However i am not looking for any job related to my interests and would rather create my very own frameworks, apps, websites etc. Great video!
At 3:02 . When u mentioned all the different kind of IT positions you want and you listed what your gonna need to learn more of depending on what you choose, that was really great information. If you could please elaborate on that in another video it'd be greatly appreciated
Cult of the D! Always on point! There are also stacks of opportunities when it comes to systems and operations that are very compatible with skills you'll get in everything you mentioned.
I did a tonne of free work before I landed a really good position and it was a great way to help others, perfect my craft and also build up a portfolio at the same time.
Wow, thanks Dorian for your amazing speeches Whenever I watch your videos I feel the honesty of your speeches. I'm exactly a self-taught developer, and today I've completed my portfolio I'm about to get my first job😊
The hardest thing is getting noticed by recruiters. I don't know what they're looking for at this point. I have a decent resume, decent LinkedIn profile, a good (and original) looking portfolio with robust full-stack projects and I'm a bootcamp graduate. I've applied to almost 1000 jobs at this points and didn't get any interviews from a salary paying job 🤡 Apparently, all of the effort and stress went to trash! "High demand" my ass!
It's tough when you don't already have industry experience. I was in that boat for over a decade. Basically, recruiters want developers who have at least built a website for someone else. Networking is *crucial* to getting your first web development job or freelance opportunity. Meetup events, FB groups, collecting business cards, going through the Yellow Pages, going through local businesses on FB. The thing is, there are way more inexperienced developers than experienced ones, and the experienced ones will almost always get the jobs. Even if you have to do a website for free for your first client, minus the expenses of hosting and domain names, that will give you experience. The problem with quitting or getting into something else is that you'll have to spend time and maybe money learning a new skill and you'll run into the same roadblocks. Even if you apply for work at Walmart or McDonald's, you will still be competing with candidates who are younger and/or will take any schedule that they are given.
Hey! Thank you so much for this video. Hands down, you are my favorite coding RU-vidr. I really appreciate the creamy light and the slider shots, and I really admire your studio setup and skills. I plan to start documenting my journey of learning how to code and wonder whether to create a dedicated coding channel or combine coding and tech reviews in the same place. I'll be happy if you share your thoughts on that. Once more, thanks for the stunning quality and for sharing your story; it really inspired me! I also wonder about the slider you use; it definitely adds to the production value, and I'm obsessed with silky-smooth gimbal and slider and shots. Sincere, POTB
If I have no interest in web development but would rather get into something like networking or cyber security, would I be able to follow the same steps or do I NEED to learn web development before I could even be successful at more advanced stuff like cyber security or networking
We’re in the same position right now and our interests align. To answer your question, it really depends on what your role is in cybersecurity. For example, web app pentesting and bug bounty requires knowledge in web applications (since you’re dealing with web applications), knowing web development and how web apps and their APIs and frameworks work will make things easier. Other cybersecurity roles like forensic investigator, vulnerability tester, and exploit analyst will not need web app development.
I think it’s important to add the technical interview process and sources on where to practice interview problems. As someone who is also self-taught, the tech interviews really threw me off and I was not prepared for it. Most software engineers study 3 months before for technical interviews- studying algorithms and data structures
Thanks man when I first started coding I seen your channel as well as Stefan from Studio Webb and I decided to take some of his programs which have been a blessing for me I'm like four months in and going strong I appreciate your encouragement brother I used to play a lot of video games as well and smoke a lot of f****** weed LOL
I will KEEP GOING!! 10 months in. Free Code Camp html, css, and JavaScript finished. No projects other than the static web pages from FCC. 1 semester of C++ online from Lone Star College ✨ in Texas.
He is right about that you will learn most at work, but don't do the mistake of just looking at the codebase and follow it, make sure to look everything up so you really understand it, don't rely on your co workers to teach you. It's the best tip i can give you. Also do quick projects to try out the different technologies in different contexts, it can really help you out to fully understand it WAY better. What might happen is that you learn more about how the current codebase is at work, which might limit your view of what's possible and how it really works. This is more important than you think.
I tried to teach myself coding years ago with a book I got from the library HTML5, CSS, JS, C+ something. I eventually gave up that in was my early 20's. Now nearing 30 after some random coding app on my tablet I wanna give it a go again. Ive even been learning to type correctly. Question whats a good laptop to code with? (not apple though).
One thing i disagree... I started node js and mern but i transfered to php and mysql, which is more simple, and a ton of jobs ask php compared to node...
Very good video! Very motivating and down to earth! 💪🏻🤙🏻😎 but again, the open source recommendation.. Those are complex codebases where senior devs are working on. Maybe there are open source "pet projects" that are just a bit bigger than the To-do List, then it will be fine. But it's unrealistic to recommend contributing to Open source projects as a noob/newbie without the breath of understanding big complex codebases.
I need some advice I am a college student, but im 26 already, i'm in my last year of the Informatic career and just started my profesional practices But i couldnt get the developer area, so i was asigned in the network area, where we spent most of the time setting ethernet cables and checking switches, obviusly has nothing to do with the dev area But the thing is i still wanna be a deveolper, and im scare because i think im getting old for the job, and when i finally start looking for it iant gonna be ready because i wasted most of my time in a different area, and i dont have any experience besides college projects... So its 26-27 to old for start as a jr developer? should i start looking right now when i have at least another semester left in college? i feel lost
I'm close to being twice as old as you. Ageism is everywhere. The good thing about web development is that there are a lot of remote work opportunities. I was about your age when I started learning how to do websites with HTML. I'm in my early 50s now and I'm still learning new things.
Hey Dorian love your channel and appreicate all the valuable information you give to everyone. I do have one quick question though. Did you primarily use Free Code Camp or The Odin Project when you were learning how to code and do you personally have a preference for aspiring developers? I know you recommend them both but if you were starting over again which platform would you use?
DO BOTH, I personally only did free code camp. Ive been web developing for like a 4 years but as soon as covid hit I really got serious and In like 2 years and like 5 months of applying I finally got my First web dev job with salary and amazing benefits you can do this!!
nice bro i want to start programming and i think i like mobile dev more than the other parts i learned C++ and C# before and know the principles in my country flutter is the new trend and there is a great potential for it. i want to learn it but im not 100 % sure about it what do you think?
Thanks for the inspiration, Dorian! By the way, any chance you can explore Calendly? I know you're a busy man but I'm sure people would love to get a chance to have a 1 on 1 mentorship with you for like 30 minutes to an hour. Of course there will be a corresponding payment but it would be awesome if we can get your insights even for just a short period of time 🙂
As a full stack developer / SQL Engineer, please focus first In front end before moving to insane complex SQL databases. You'll struggle alot. HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT to begin is great to start with.
Going right into my "Productivity" playlist so I can reference this vid when I need some motivation. Side point...Can we get a link to that diffuser on your desk?? Also, do you have any thoughts on Leon Noel's 100Devs free bootcamp?
